The Beloved Woman Behind the Mask

Meditation on monologue of the same title by Carrie Eikler
John 4:5-29        John 4:31-42

As many of you know, I had a 6 day trip this past week.  I drove from Morgantown to N. Manchester Indiana with Patrick, dropped him off with the grandparents, and continued on to the COB General Offices in Elgin Illinois.  While I was there I participated in the Mission and Ministry board meetings.   I also had the chance to get away and spend the night with my brother in Chicago [and let me tell you, Chicago on St. Patrick’s Day weekend is an experienced to savored or avoided, depending on your perspective].  There is a lot of drinking going on.  A lot.  I of course was not nearly so liberal in my libations, as Chris and I enjoyed a quiet dinner in an Indian restaurant.

But I’ll tell you, when I travel and have meetings, I do drink a lot.  And before you make assumptions, what I mean is I drink a lot of coffee.  Maybe soda.   Lots of cups of tea.  Generally this is to help me “wake up” from long hours in the car, or long meetings that are perhaps less than thrilling.  And I realize, on these trips, while I drink a lot of things, I rarely drink water.

Oh sure, I have a bottle, but it’s never feels like “what I need.”  I need caffeine!  I need something more interesting!  But by the end of my trip, or maybe even in the middle, I recognize the foolishness of my choices.  I begin feeling dry, tired.  So I drink more coffee to help me feel less tired.

As I’m sure you know, caffeinated drinks are not good substitutes for pure water when one is dehydrated.  In fact, caffeinated drinks dehydrate you and dehydration makes one lethargic and then it becomes a vicious dry cycle of drink caffeine to wake up but ultimately just feeling more and more run down.

It’s about this time…two or three days into the trip, when I drink some water and realize how this is what I really need.  Not milky sweet coffee.  Not acai-berry flavored vitamin water sweetened with organic cane sugar.  Not even a soothing cup of chamomile.  What I need is water.  Real water.  And you know that feeling…when I don’t even know I’m thirsty but I take a cup of water and I wonder why I’ve been depriving myself of this for so long.

The other stuff is just masking my real thirst.  My real need.  Masking what my body needs.  The West Virginia born country star Kathy Mattea wrote a song called “Standing Knee Deep in a River (Dying of Thirst).”  She talks about good friends she could count on, sweethearts she let go, how they all roll by like water.  We go through life parched and empty, standing knee deep in a river, dying of thirst.

The monologue about the beloved woman in the mask was presented to those of us at the Sister Care seminar this past fall, a seminar hosted by Mennonite Women USA.  It was a powerful weekend of Mennonite and ecumenical sisters discovering how not only to support other sisters, but discovering our own needs for self-care, honesty, and to claim our own identity as God’s beloved.

We were reminded that as we grow in this life, we forget our original identity as a beloved woman or man of God.  Culture tells us we are not good enough, beautiful enough, talented enough, smart enough.  People or experiences in our lives may have told us the same thing, and added the shame of sexual abuse, emotional and physicalabuse, spiritual neglect, bullying, and other forms of shaming.  It doesn’t take very long for those little girls and boys, fresh faced and shining with God’s love, to grow into self-protecting men and women who wear a variety of masks.

We wear masks to hide things we may be ashamed of.  We wear masks because we think those in the church might not approve of our past stories, our present circumstances, or even our future endeavors.  We wear masks because our thirst for a unified life, is masked by drinking the lie that it is simply easier to put on false airs.  To wear a mask.  To show one face to someone when what is in your heart and soul is completely different.

Now, as the monologue makes obvious, God sees beyond this mask.  God knows the woman behind it.  God knows the man behind the mask.  And God loves her. God loves him.  We must claim that mercy and grace in each part of our lives.  We claim our identity as beloved daughters and sons.

And yet, I wonder…what would it look like if you gave someone else permission to take off their masks, not only in front of God, but in front of you.  Could you handle that?  What spiritual depth does that take?  What needs to be released in you in order for you to tell someone: God loves the person behind the mask, and so do I.

You’re saying, I know you’re thirsty and I won’t give you a can of Coke.  I won’t give you a cup of coffee.  Something that will not satisfy, and maybe even make you thirstier.  I know you are thirsty, and I will give you water.  Living water. I will show you what it means to be loved unconditionally.  I will physically manifest with it is that God proclaims. 

What will it take for you to do that?

Standing here this moment, I can say that I don’t know what it will take for you to get there, because I don’t know the mask you are wearing.  I don’t know how far you need to go before claiming your identity as God’s beloved.  I don’t know what blocks you from being willing to see behind the mask of someone else.  Only you know that.

Drink of the living water.  The living water.  Water that quenches all thirst.  Drink in God’s unconditional love for you.  And suddenly, you will feel it.  That welling spring.  Joy bubbling up, beginning to spill over until it’s running like rivers all over the ground.

And you will find, it’s too much for one person to drink alone. 

Nothing Ventured ...

sermon by Torin Eikler
Genesis 12:1-4a           John 3:1-17

I was surfing the net the other day and one of those pop-up ads came on the screen.  Usually when that happens I close them immediately and exit the browser just to reduce the chance of any unwanted program loading onto my computer.  But this time, the ad actually caught my attention.  With the words, “What could you do if you knew who you really were?” it was luring me into taking a free online personality test.  It almost got me ….  I paused for just a moment before closing everything down.

Personality tests have become commonplace in our society these days…. Myers-Briggs, Enneagrams, Jung test, Human-metrics, Kirsey Temperment sorter, and a host of other less well known and less trusted tools out there.
 

My first experience of tests like these was when I went to work with the workcamps office in Elgin.  It wasn’t a personality test.  It was a communications style assessment – a survey that evaluates your tendencies and approach toward communicating with others both in words and in other ways.  Carrie and I have both found it to be a useful tool in our life together and in helping other couples headed toward marriage understand some of how and why they struggle with each other’s annoying habits.

To give you a little overview, the assessment divides your responses into four different categories: Accommodating/harmonizing, Analyzing/preserving, Achieving/directing, and Affiliating/perfecting.  Each one of these has a characteristic way communicating and of approaching the world based on different central concerns.  Everyone can and does access all of the styles at different times, but most people are more comfortable with one approach and they tend to use that style most of the time.

People who are primarily accomodating/harmonizing try to avoid conflict.  If they have to, they will sacrifice their own goals and sometimes their own wellbeing to accomplish their goal, but they prefer to use humor and a sunny disposition.  A phrase that has often been associated with this group is “You catch more flies with honey than with vinegar.”

Achieving/directors take a different approach.  They like to try new things and innovate, and they prefer to work quickly to get things done.  Sometimes they are compared to semi-trucks speeding along in the passing lane by those who might get in their way, but they are really just focused on accomplishing their goals.  They’re motto is “nothing ventured … noting gained.”
 

Those who live out of their Affiliating/perfecting natures value … well … strong values.  They follow a strong moral compass, choose causes and people who they feel they can trust and look up to, and give them their loyalty.  They feel that “if it’s worth doing, it’s worth doing well.”
 

And, analyzing/preserving people value limiting risk.  They feel anxious when faced with new situations or new people that they don’t understand because they are missing important information that would clarify how their environment fits together.  They will work tirelessly to gather all the data before making a change so that they can make the right decision – a safe decision.  They believe in the wisdom of the phrase “look before you leap.”
 

 

That last one is my strongest suit.  I’m also pretty strong in the achieving/directing tendencies … which makes for an interesting struggle from time to time.  (Do I keep looking for information OR do I just get things done however that happens.)  Most often, though, I spend my time trying to assess risks and choose the most prudent path.

I see the same thing in Nicodemus.  It’s risky to try and analyze the psychology of Biblical characters.  There’s just so little to go on, and the world they lived in was so different from anything we know that it’s next to impossible to figure out what they were like or what they might have been thinking.  Still, there something about this secret nighttime meeting with Jesus that smacks of the need to gather information without risking the judgment of the authorities.  I suppose it might be something I would do… calling Jesus in … to answer my questions in the secrecy of afforded by darkness.
 

So, I feel like I understand what Nicodemus is doing.  He finds a safe … ish way to get the information that he needs to make his decision, and he starts to asks Jesus his questions.  But things get out of hand … because Jesus interrupts him.  He doesn’t get a chance to ask his questions.  He doesn’t get the answers he wanted.  He gets Jesus … at his best … Jesus talking on two and three levels at the same time … Jesus offering explanations that only lead to more questions … Jesus challenging everything he thinks he knows. 
 

And he gets Jesus asking him to let go of control and take a leap of faith … nothing ventured, nothing gained.

That is hard for all of us.  It’s scary to consider let go and stepping out in trust that someone will guide us where we need to go … that anyone could get us there safely.  And it’s particularly hard for people who live out of the style that Nicodemus and I share.  Picture a trust fall – you know the group building exercise where you stand on a chair or a table or just the floor, you cross you arms and close your eyes, and you fall backward into the waiting hands of your friends or colleagues who catch you.  Now picture falling through those hands onto the hard ground, and you can understand the fear this kind of situation bring up in me.

 

I don’t know how many of you have the heard the story of my struggle with baptism.  It started when I was 10 years old and my Sunday School went through a membership class.  For some reason, I missed the first day of that series, and I didn’t know that it was a membership class.  Six Sunday’s later, as we wrapped up the lesson, the teacher said (in a matter-of-fact voice), “So, next Sunday will be the baptisms.  I’m going to pass around note cards, and I want you to write your names and the word ‘yes’ or ‘no’ so we know who will be getting baptized.”

 

I was stunned… stunned and terrified, and I think mine might have been the first card she got back … with the word “no” written in capital letters and circled (just to make sure that she saw it).

For the next 19 years, I struggled with the idea of baptism.  Any number of excuses came and went.  I wasn’t sure that I believed in God.  I wasn’t ready to accept that Jesus actually divine.  I had already been baptized at a healing garden when I was 8 years old, and wasn’t baptism a once-and-for-all-time kind of thing.
 

Eventually, I realized that my real issue was control.  I just wasn’t sure that I was willing to give up control of my own life.  I wasn’t sure that I trusted God enough to believe that the Spirit would be a gentle and loving guide as I was shepherded through whatever wildernesses there were down the path on the way to a new life and a different kind of living.

 

I did finally decide to take the plunge … to be born again of water and the Spirit, and even then, I had mixed emotions.  On the one hand, I was so eager and excited.  I dreamed of the Spirit descending on me … of speaking in tongues … or any other kind of obvious manifestation.  It wasn’t because I wanted everyone else to be impressed (or not mostly because of that).  What I really wanted was confirmation that I had made the right choice and a clear sense of purpose to replace the uncertainty that had plagued me during my long struggle.
 

At the same time, I was scared.  Another very big part of me was still reluctant to give up control, and I was terrified that the Spirit would fall on me in the moment that I rose from the waters for the third time.  Even if that Spirit was the very God that I was committing myself to, I was not eager to find myself speaking words that I couldn’t understand or waking up to discover that I had “gone out in the Spirit.”

In the end, I didn’t get any special signs … unless you want to count the moment in the hallway behind the sanctuary when my sponsor (who was helping me get out of the baptismal robe and dry off) accidentally knocked a sign over on my toe and I managed not to curse or even to shout.  He seemed to think that was an act of God.

 

I was so relieved.  I felt so disappointed.  I also felt a new sense of freedom.  It wasn’t all up to me to figure everything out anymore.  I was riding on the wind of the Spirit, and even facing the inevitability of being blown to places I wouldn’t always like … to places I certainly wouldn’t choose on my own, I felt less worry and fear about the future than I had in years.  That spiritual high only lasted for a few weeks, but I still feel that taking that risk was one of the best decisions of my life, and it has been one of the greatest blessings.

For many of us, the idea that we are kites riding on the breath of the Spirit can be … well let just say that it doesn’t seem like much of a blessing!  And yet, with a little shift of perspective, that same vision can bring forth excitement and ….  As David Lose puts it:
 

I think this declaration that the Spirit -- and those born of the Spirit -- blows where it will gives us tremendous freedom when we think about how best to respond to the challenges and opportunities of the age. Part of what is so anxiety provoking about this time is that it feels like there are no road maps….  [the] reliable patterns by which [have organized our lives are gone].  [And when] we give those up…, we feel like we are sailing in uncharted waters or driving down a foreign and forbidding road.
 

Except that we are not alone! The Spirit … accompanies and empowers us to face a future that we may feel is uncertain but has been secured by the death and resurrection of Jesus. From this perspective, the anxiety that many of us feel -- there is no roadmap! -- can be transformed into excitement -- there is no roadmap! :) Which means that we are free -- we don’t have to do things the way they’ve always been done. We can experiment, risk, fail (you can’t experiment without failing), learn, and grow in ways we’d never imagined. Because the Spirit of Christ will blow us in directions we hadn’t imagined.[1]

It is risky ... stepping out on the breath of the Spirit.  Letting go of control and riding the wind wherever it may take us … that’s not a comforting thought (even for the achieving/directors among us).  But hope and promise ride the same wind along with the blessings of freedom and new life.

 

My prayer every day is that I will find the courage and the strength to accept the risk – that we all will accept it so that we can know the great blessings that come to us on the Spirit’s breath.
 

Amen.

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[1] David Lose - http://www.workingpreacher.org/craft.aspx?m=4377&post=3103

Choosing the Best

sermon by Torin Eikler
Genesis 2:15-17; 3:1-7            Matthew 4:1-11

I have to admit that when I first read the scriptures for today, I was tempted to talk with you about how Adam and Eve are much maligned in Christian teachings (especially Eve).  Or to talk about some of the interesting thoughts out there that try to interpret Jesus’ temptations in different lights … especially after Carrie mentioned Henri Nouwen’s perspective on being relevant.  Or to talk about the metaphor of Satan and how we have defanged its power … just about anything except the obvious topic - temptation

I suppose that I have given in to that temptation having indulged in that little detour, but I promise that I will try my best to stick the task at hand ….

 

When I was a child, an important part of Sunday School being memorizing certain scriptures – the beatitudes, the ten commandments, 1^st John 4 especially verse 7 and 8, and the 23^rd Psalm come to mind.  I think things have changed a little bit since then because the curriculum that we have used during our years here have had very little if any memorizing in them, and I have wondered about that.

I do remember a love-hate relationship with those verses.  It was great when they were pretty easy because we got prizes for being able to reel them off in front of the class.  But when the scriptures were particularly long or challenging, it was a nightmare, because we still had to stand up in front of everyone and there was always someone who had managed to get them right.  And the rest of us … or sometimes just me … felt embarrassed.  Still, I have appreciated knowing those verses over the course of my life, and when I began to work with the middler class this year, I decided that it would be good for them (and for me) to work on some of the big ones.  So, we have gone through the Ten Commandments and have begun to work on the Lord’s Prayer before diving into the 23^rd Psalm.
 

Last week, we went through the Lord’s Prayer phrase by phrase before we put the whole thing together.  We worked out “hallowed” and discussed what God’s Kingdom might look like and noticed that the prayer has us ask to receive the same forgiveness we have given.  When we got close to the end, we talked about what evil means and how good it is to be delivered from it.  But, we didn’t talk about temptation.  Everyone seemed to know what it meant, and there wasn’t very much time left.  After this week, I’m kind of wishing that we had at least mentioned it….
 

 

Though, temptation is that desire that we feel to do something that we shouldn’t, sometimes it is easier to see and understand than others – like when we are faced with an unguarded cookie on the steps or any time we are faced with something that is obviously evil.  But what happens when we come up against less clear-cut decisions?  What about the times when we could accomplish something good if we would only make the tiniest of compromises … only take a small detour from the straight and narrow path?  That’s when we face the power of temptation … when we feel the real appeal of justifying the means by the end … the lure of choosing good rather than God’s best.[1]

 

On Thursday, Pope Francis made a bit of a shocking confession at a meeting with priests in Rome.  He told them that he had stolen the rosary cross of his late confessor from the casket at his funeral.  As he told the story, he went to the pray at the casket of the [man known as the] “great confessor” of Buenos Aires, and was stunned that no one had brought any flowers….  So he went out and bought a bouquet of roses, and when he returned to arrange them around the casket, he saw the rosary the priest still held in his hand.

“And immediately there came to mind the thief we all have inside ourselves, and while I arranged the flowers, I took the cross and with just a bit of force, I removed it,” he said, showing with his hands how he pulled the cross off the rosary. “And in that moment I looked at him and I said, ‘Give me half your mercy.’”
 

Francis said he kept the cross in his shirt pocket for years, but that the cassock he wears now as pope doesn’t have a pocket. He now keeps it in a little pouch underneath.  “And,” he says, “whenever a bad thought comes to mind about someone, my hand goes here, always,” he said, gesturing to his heart. “And I feel the grace, and that makes me feel better.”[2]

I’m not sure whether that qualifies as choosing good over the best, or if Pope Francis really did wish so much for an extra measure of mercy, but it does show how tempting it can be to reach for good things in the wrong way, especially when it’s such a little thing – a cross that no one will miss.

And yet, I don’t think temptation is evil in and of itself.  No, temptation is just part and parcel of free will.  You can’t have the ability to choose without the option of choosing poorly.  It’s been that way since the beginning, and even Jesus felt the urge to take the shorter, easier way.  (Maybe that’s why the prayer he gave us goes to the extra effort of mentioning both things.)

I’m tempted again to go into the reasons why Jesus had to be tempted and what that says about his nature and God’s desire to be one with us even though it’s not in my manuscript.  That would be a good thing to talk about, but I promised to stay on task.  And, I think talking about how Jesus responded would actually be closer to the best for us….

We have a tendency to dismiss Jesus’ struggle in the wilderness because he was the Son of God – God herself in human form.  And what’s a little temptation to someone who is divine – who knows all things and has all the power he needs already?  But, faced with his temptations, Jesus turned to the word of God as he had learned it over the past 20 years.  The truth in the holy verses he had memorized became the words with which he resisted the power of The Deceiver.  And that’s not particularly miraculous.  It’s something all of us could do if we had the strength and the presence of mind … although I’m pretty sure I would need more than that to resist a little bread after forty days of fasting.

Jesus was fresh from his baptism and he did have the Holy Spirit accompanying him which certainly would have helped, but it was not all that power that helped him resist.  It was actually that power that made his temptation more intense.  Why not turn a few stones into bread or even a more elaborate meal?  No one was there to see him.  No one would have suffered for his indulgence.  And it would have been good to prepare himself physically for the ministry he was about to begin.

Yet he refused.

He refused … and we can only speculate as to the why.  Somehow he understood that God’s plan for the world would not … could not be served by taking the easy way out.  Eventually, he would have power over all the kingdoms and rulers of Earth.  Eventually, Jesus would experience God’s protection (not from mere beatings or even crucifixion, but from death itself).  Eventually, he would make bread to feed thousands appear from next to nothing.  But this was not the time or the way to do it.  God’s best hopes for the world required a different path … a longer path … a path without compromise.  And with the power of the God’s word and the Spirit’s guidance, he was able to choose the harder path.

  There is a phrase that I don’t really like though I know that it brings comfort to many … “God never gives us more than we can handle.”  Every time that I hear those words, I cringe a little inside because I can’t help thinking about how they incriminate God.  They imply that God actually does lead us into the path of temptation and evil or that God wants to test us with suffering and pain.  I know that image is present in the Bible, but I believe that Jesus’ gift to us is an assurance that God isn’t really like that … that God is really all about love and grace and mercy and healing.

I do think, though, that if we change that phrase just a little bit, it would be true.  God always gives us what we need to make it through.  We have the wisdom of scriptures.  We have the teachings and example of Jesus and others who have lived well throughout the centuries.  We have the assurance of grace and love.  We have the guidance and support of the Holy Spirit who walks beside us through every trial.

 

Each day of our lives, we face temptations.  Little ones and big ones, they come to us as a part of our journey through life.  Often we don’t even notice them until we look back with regret or satisfaction on the choices we have made.
 
I have a feeling that we might find ourselves regretting less if we paid attention more … because we have all that we need.  We have the wisdom to choose God’s best (at least as well as we understand what that is).  We have the strength to resist.  And we have the Spirit to help us along the way … if we are willing to take the first step.

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[1] Maggie Dawn, The Christian Century (March 5, 2014), 20.

[2] http://nypost.com/2014/03/06/pope-francis-took-cross-from-late-confessors-rosary/

 

The Transfiguration

sermon by Carrie Eikler
Matthew 17:1-9, 2 Peter 1:16-21

I have to admit something.  I have grown afraid of the dark the older I get.

Not the dark of my bedroom when the lights out.

But pitch black dark, where you can’t see anything.

Now maybe I’m not the only one.  And maybe I didn’t have much experience of being in pitch black dark as a child.  It’s not an easy thing to come by in our electrically wired world.

But I discovered this…discomfort when I was in Japan for the first time.

I say the first time because I have had the wonderful opportunity to visit Japan twice in my life.  The first time was in 2004 when we visited Torin’s parents in Hiroshima, where they were spending two years in Brethren Volunteer Service.  The second time was in 2010 when Torin and I joined two other clergy couples in studying interfaith and intercultural dialogue.

Both times I have gone to Japan it was with the intention of studying the life and work of KoboDaishi, a Buddhist monk and founder of the Shingon sect of Buddhism.

Both times were joyful occasions and I long to return to Japan again.

Both times we ventured to mountain peak monasteries.

Both times we explored the wandering grounds of Buddhist temples.

and Both times we went to Zensuji, one of the eighty-eight temples on the pilgrimage around the island of Shikoku, a sacred island to Japan’s Shingon Buddhist community.

And it was here I faced the dark, seemingly for the first time.

Underneath the temple of Zensuji is a circular tunnel.  On the wall of this tunnel are paintings that tell the story of the Buddha.  But you don’t see these pictures because it is dark.  Pitch dark.  Pitch black dark.

Rather than seeing them, you run your hand along the wall and let the wall guide you around the curves of the path.  Your hand passes over the story you don’t see.

Immediately after entering into the tunnel this first time, I knew this was not. for.  me.  I felt my heart racing, I looked around as if I was going to see a lighted exit sign.  And just before I was about to turn around and exit…

I closed my eyes.

And I felt better.

Because, I was used to the dark behind my eyes.  I “see” this all the time.

This dark was my friend, the dark I long for every night when I go to bed.

The dark behind my eyes helped calm me down and I found myself, still uncomfortable…

but able to finish my journey.

Skip ahead 6 years.

Same temple.

Same doorway down into the abyss.

Six clergy-folk ready to go underground.

My breath is already getting shallow and quick.

Everyone else seems so excited.

I don’t remember the trick I learned last time.

The six of us descend.

My heart rate increases.

Panic.  I give a little groan.

And I close my eyes.

And it’s ok.

But I still mutter “I don’t like this”

And then I feel it.

A gentle hand takes mine.

One of my companions, I don’t remember if it was Torin or Russ or Erin or Bill or Sara,

held my hand until the blazing light of the external world came streaming onto us.

The hands of my companion.

As good as, what Peter says, “lamps shining in a dark place”

As good as, Peter saying “this is a good place to be”

As scary as it is in this tunnel,

as terrifying as what life is throwing at you.

There are lamps shining for us, showing us the blessing in the dark places.

The gospel story is commonly known as the Transfiguration because

Jesus is transfigured before Peter, James, and John.  The empty space around him is transfigured into the presence of Elijah and Moses.

Up here are three teachers, wise sages, prophets…blazing bright.

Down there, down in the darkness, three friends, simultaneously terrified and elated.

The theological significance of this moment,

is that in this transfiguration, the true nature of Jesus is revealed.  Human and divine.

I can just picture a hand grasping for a friend in this dazzling moment.

Peter’s shout of “Lord it is good for us to be here!” drowning out

John’s weak confession: “I don’t like this”

Now, really, we don’t know what the others said, but we do know two things happened on this mountain

and this is the important part.

On this mountain, friends accompanied and God affirmed.

Accompany- to be a companion, to be with someone, to walk with someone, to hold the hand of someone, to make a camp and pitch a tent—or at least offer to—to be willing to fall down on your face in fear or joy or grief and let someone see you do it.

Affirm – to offer support, encouragement.  To say that something is true.  God affirms that Jesus is beloved. 

And this my friends,

this is what I believe the Christian walk into our own transfiguration…or maybe transformation…or maybe salvation.

is built on.

A community that accompanies and affirms one another.

I have seen this recently as members sat and vulnerably shared about their struggles of autism in the beloved children in their life.

I have seen this recently as friends have encouraged the gifts in others to pursue new ventures in ministry.

Take a moment and think of the gift we have here.  We here have a group of people who, I hope, are here with a commitment to walk with you and encourage you.  To accompany you and affirm you.  Just think about that?  How many people in this world just wished they had even a taste of that?

But I’ll warn you.  Those who accompany you…who affirm you…they may not look like people you normally choose as friends.  They can be surprising.  And perhaps, because they may be so different than who you would have dinner with on Friday night, or play golf with on Saturday morning, or have a book group discussion with…because they are so different may be the way that they show Christ’s illuminating face to you so clearly.

I have frequently talked about the L’arch Communities around the world, intentional communities of people with mental and physical disabilities and their friends and helpers who live with them.  I have talked about the founder Jean Vanier, and have talked about the way L’arche deepend the spiritual and emotional life of the academic priest from Harvard, Henri Nouwen.

In this little book “In the Name of Jesus” by Nouwen tells a story about being invited to an conference in Washington DC.  At this time he is living with men with mental disabilities at Daybreak, a L’arche community in Canada.  The community decided that Bill should go with Henri.  Bill was one of the higher-functioning residents of the community. As they prepared for their trip to Washington DC, Bill kept telling Henri, perhaps reminding him “We are doing this together, aren’t we?”
“Yes, Bill” said Henri.  “We sure are.”  The little book is about what Nouwen shared at the conference, but he said it was Bill’s presence that gave more lasting influence than his own words.
Henri said that up until the moment he approached the microphone he didn’t exactly know what Bill’s emphasis of “doing it together” would mean. 
Henri took his handwritten text to the podium leaving Bill in the audience. Once Henri began, however, Bill walked up to the podium and “planted himself right behind me” continues Nouwen. 

It was clear that he had a much more concrete idea about the meaning of “doing it together” than I.  Each time I finished reading a page, he took it away and put it upside down on a small table close by.  I felt very much at ease with this and started to feel Bill’s presence as a support.

But Bill had more in mind. When I began to speak about the temptation to turn stones into bread as a temptation to be relevant, he interrupted me and said loudly for everyone to hear, “I have heard that before!”  He had indeed, and he just wanted the priests and ministers who were listening to know that he knew me quite well and was familiar with my ideas.  For me, however, it felt like a gentle loving reminder that my thoughts were not as new as I wanted my audience to believe.  Bill’s intervention created a new atmosphere in the ballroom:  lighter, easier, and more playful.  Somehow Bill had taken away the seriousness of the occasion and had brought to it some homespun normality.  as I continued my presentation, I felt more and more that we were indeed doing this together.  And it felt good.

After I had finished reading my text and people had shown their appreciation, Bill said to me:  Henri, can I say something now?”  My first reaction was, “Oh, how am I going to handle this?  He might start rambling and create an embarrassing situation,”  but then I caught myself in my presumption that he had nothing of importance to say and said to the audience, “…Bill would like to say a few words to you.”

Bill took the microphone and said, with all the difficulties he has in speaking, “Last time, when Henri went to Boston, he took John Smeltzer with him.  This time he wanted me to come with him to Washington, and I am very glad to e here with you.  Thank you very much.”  That was it, and everyone stood up and gave him warm applause.

As we flew back together to Toronto, Bill looked up from the word-puzzle book that he takes with him wherever he goes and said, “Henri, did you like our trip?”

“Oh yes,” I answered, “it was a wonderful trip, and I am so glad you came with me.”

Bill looked at me attentively and then said, “And we did it together, didn’t we?”

“Yes we did, Bill. Yes we did.”

It is this sort of accompanying and affirmation that brings the transfiguration to our lives.  Being with another person and helping them receive a clearer picture of Christ.  Allowing another person to show you more clearly, the face of Christ…perhaps a surprising, potentially embarrassing companion.

But we accompany and affirm in Jesus’ name as we step out of the darkness into the light.